I'm in my feelings this morning thanks to this team, and here's where my head is at. Some reactionary thoughts the rational part of my brain can't entirely talk me out of right now:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQiOA7euaYA&ab_channel=DavidByrne- Teams take on the personality of their best players and the Celtics are an undisciplined, not especially clever or creative basketball team that defaults to bad habits (hero ball) in tough moments. The Celtics are a mentally weak team with no edge; this has been true for several years now, and the consistent ingredients are Tatum, Brown, and Smart. Tatum and Brown shoulder the blame for me because they are the "stars," but I think Smart sees himself as the true leader and emotional core of the team. It would be nice if Smart were the leader of the team, perhaps, but he isn't, and I suspect that it's a problematic dynamic in the locker room.
- Rob Williams and Romeo Langford will never be fully healthy for more than a game or two at a time. They will always have nagging injuries. Romeo, for his part, just does not seem like he's going to get to a point where he can be a regular contributor, at least not in a Celtics uniform.
- Ime Udoka has been bad. As in "reminiscent of Luke Walton" bad. I can't think of a single thing I like about what I've seen from the team this year that I would attribute to the coach. You expect a rookie head coach to maybe have some ups and downs, but Ime has not even delivered on the things that I hoped he would provide compared to Brad. Brad was burnt out, but he was still one of the better coaches in the league. Ime looks like one of the worst.
- The Celtics are going to be 5-10 games under .500 by Christmas. This isn't getting any easier and given the strength of the East this could be a lost season by new year. Go ahead and look at the upcoming schedule. It's brutal. This team has not demonstrated the fortitude to make it through adversity.
- It's still early, both for this season and for the Jays' tenure in Boston. Jaylen has 3 years left and Tatum has 4. Even so, this sure *looks* like the first part of a very painful story in which the Celtics grow increasingly dysfunctional as the team becomes more and more centered around Tatum and Brown, and one or both guys ends up requesting a trade.
- The Celtics have basically lost talent every single summer for 4 straight off-seasons, and the Jays aren't good enough to make up for it. Jaylen and Jayson have shown that they can carry an offensive burden on a nightly basis. What they can't do is basically any of the other things you want from your stars. They aren't leaders on the floor or off. They don't set a tone of offense. They don't take control in crunch time. They don't get to the line very often and so don't provide a consistent baseline of scoring to ward off scoring droughts when the jumpshots stop falling. They aren't playmakers and they don't really make life easier for their teammates.
It used to be that we could cite their age, but realistically both Tatum and Brown have been in the league for half a decade at this point. They've played a lot of minutes in the regular season and been core components of teams that have been in a lot of playoff games. Both of them have grown a ton in their scoring ability and the variety of skills they have to get shots. Yet they're both still so, so far away from being able to function as the lead playmaker for a good team. If either of them is ever going to be the kind of star scorer that makes teammates better, I don't think it's going to happen in a Celtics uniform.
- Brad Stevens failed to equip this team with the passing and ball-handling that is so clearly needed around two high volume scorers that lack playmaking ability. He compounded that error by failing to keep or add above average shooting to maintain spacing around two high volume individual scorers.
- Ime Udoka not playing the young guys is an indictment not just of Ime but of Brad as well. If Ime is simply not the kind of coach who is going to focus on developing the younger players on what is still a very young roster, he was not the right choice for head coach.
- The Celtics don't do anything well. They aren't a good defensive team, despite their personnel. They don't defend the perimeter well. They aren't big enough to prevent talented opponents like Chicago from scoring bunches inside. They don't get to the free throw line enough. They lack ballhandlers and passers. Their crunch time offense is predictable and easy to defend. They can't hold leads and they can't close out games. There's just not much to feel good about when you watch them, which is why I'm planning on taking a break from watching them for a while.
Overall, pretty bad! I've tried to maintain patience with this team, as it's still early. We haven't hit the 20 game mark, if we're following Jeff Clark's rule about drawing conclusions early in a season. But this season so far has truly looked like a continuation of last season, despite the change in coach and the supporting cast. In that sense it feels like the team has been in a dark place for over a year now. This team has been bad vibes and a persistent bummer basically since the Miami series in the bubble. I don't have any faith at this point that it's going to get better.
I fear that we're on a long, slow, painful slide into an inevitable rebuild. I find myself already pining for the eventual "Kenny Atkinson coaching a bunch of cast-off vets and rookie contract guys" season in which the Celtics go 30-52 and get a top 10 pick.
I remember when the Celtics got Jayson Tatum thinking how lucky we were as fans that the Celts managed to find the kind of player who only comes along a couple times in a generation, and they didn't even have to tank (ok I didn't know he would be that good right away, but it became clear early on). The ECF runs early in Jayson's career made it seem like the sky was the limit. The bloom is off the rose now, it feels like. Jayson is a sensational scorer, but it seems like he's just fundamentally lacking the things you need in your best player. I like Jaylen a lot, but he's missing a lot of the same things.
Ahhh ... well. I'm taking a break from this team (or will try to anyway). I'm telling myself that I'll watch again when they're above .500 again. When will that be? I fear it'll be a while.
Topic: Hot takes following a bad loss & terrible start to the season (Read 12466 times)